Pioneers in condo-land

Montreal developers take a tried-and-true formula from housing market and apply it to commercial real estate. Ben Lipowitz used to look out from his seventh floor office in tony Westmount Square at a building across Ste. Catherine Street West and wonder why, given its prime location on the eastern edge of the City of Westmount and downtown Montreal, it was never fully rented. A few enquiries turned up the answer. Part of the building was occupied by a restaurant and there were concerns about cooking smells and noise. In 2005, the restaurant moved across the street, the building came up for sale and Mr. Lipowitz pounced.